


to let you know i thought of you

by tnevmucric



Category: Persona 5, Persona Series
Genre: Adulthood, Alternate Universe, Dialogue Light, Implied/Referenced Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Moving In Together, No Metaverse (Persona 5), Open to Interpretation, POV First Person, Stream of Consciousness, they are in love and my heart hurts, unbetad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-01
Updated: 2019-06-01
Packaged: 2020-04-05 03:53:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19040593
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnevmucric/pseuds/tnevmucric
Summary: "he likes you, especially."





	to let you know i thought of you

"He's very kind." The sponge is rung clean, the clatter of wet cutlery almost too much over the monotonous groan of the fridge. "I decline his tips but I always find them tucked under his coaster or by the plants. Does Boss give him an earful about it?"

I glance her way, catching the smile in her cheek. "Yes." She smiles wider, shaking her head and passing me a wet dish without looking.

"He likes you, especially."

I hum and feign nonchalance, taking the dish and drying it as if it could restart the stutter in my chest– but it does nothing to pause my beating heart. I _know_ you like me, you like everyone. I also know her nail polish will surely chip from all of the warm water she's soaking her fingers in.

"Socially he's quite inept", she continues, "to him, I think you were a breath of fresh air. He felt no need to hide. Am I wrong in thinking you feel the same way?"

"He's a nice man. Nice to speak to."

"I wouldn't call him a _man_ ", she pauses over the sink, her head and hip cocking in time with the thought passing over her head. "Though he's not a boy either. He's just... _he_ ", the clatter of dish-washing starts again. "Himself _._ "

I have to hold my tongue between my teeth. Somehow, she's described you better than I ever could. Blindly, I had hoped to think I was your only admirer–no, _surveyor_. We document what we see and slip it into mindless chatter, gossip without malicious intent and hope to find some proof of what you really are.  _It's strange to have met him so frequently now after hearing you talk about him so much these past few years_ , she says.  _Perks of the job_ , I almost reply.

"Do you fancy him?", I joke instead. She laughs, light and lovely, bumping against my side as I stack the dry plate down.

"Perhaps", Haru admits, "but he's somebody everyone fancies."

I steer us back towards the safety of familiar discussion, fear fueled and aching from the pain of admiration. I kiss her on the cheek when she leaves, reliving the familiar warmth in the final wave of her hand. She reminds me I suit the company of fond friendship, reminds me that I am worth the words I think about saying... being told that your thoughts are wanted to be heard shouldn't _feel_ so foolishly intimate, and yet as of late they take the form of my hiding heart. I want to gush to my friend about your smell, something closer to cloves than star anise, something old but bright on the sinuses, I want to tell her that I think you _really_ like me, and that if I'm naive then so be it because you give my palpitations another meaning. I like the way you say things, as if you wait for me to pull them apart, consonants from their shoulder-popped forms, those dislocations on my tongue... I long for whatever you will give me. I long to dig my fingers into the grate of the outdoor tables and ground myself to the places you sit (we never had the outdoor tables until _you_ suggested it). Where the sun hits you brightest. Where your lips stretch the widest.

You touched something that leaves a residual spark sleeping deep and light within me and I'm very sure I wouldn't have it any other way, not even when where we are is nowhere special, not a quiet seclude or some far corner of the Earth. The distant, heinous, and memorable of a third and final sibling, instead. Yongen-Jaya; the favourite and the unfavorable.

(Sometimes, I think you're infatuated with the alleyways.)

When you talk, about anything, about something, about the weather, I am mesmerised and fleeting: I want to taste your spoken syllables on my tongue and breathe what you're breathing. How many times have I washed my hands, slid my hands somehwere they needn't be, and this morning I slip into your car and those same hands nurse nervous knees. To think that one day these hands could walk anywhere or hold anything–perhaps it is our blessing.

I am unfortunately, unapologetically devoted.

"How is Sakura-san?", you ask me. The car is warm and the windows a little foggy; it's early, and I'm wearing the scarf that you offered me. _Am I right where you want me?_

I can only guess what you look like when I am not looking at you. I can only guess what I look like when I am looking at you.

"Good", my focus pulls to the window. "Getting better. He has another few weeks of bed-rest before they'll let him back into work, so Haru's still helping out around Leblanc while Futaba takes care of him."

"Please give them my regards."

"I will." There's an expression on your face I can't read–almost bitter, but not unkindly. "How has work been?"

You laugh and I realise it matches your coffee–lopsided and under-brewed. _Too sweet._

"Would it be unprofessional of me to say that I'd prefer to spend my day in good company than that of the workplace?"

"I promise I won't tell Sae you said that", your grin softens slightly and I try to pinch it's sides, pull it up tightly, "but only because I like spending time with you, too."

The drive feels close to a figment of my imagination. A more ideal path, a dream, suddenly exposed in his mid-morning fortitude.

"You remind me of an unbearably hot and endless summer."

The house is lovely, for all it's worth. It seems an over expense at first glance but I notice you call it quaint, almost linger on calling it a home–I know.

You smile down at me, quizzical at my words as you hold open the car door. "How so?"

The deck needs some repairs, it seems. And I have the feeling that there are light bulbs to be replaced and walls to be re-painted–distractions in the tower in case reciprocation isn't evident. I land in the swinging deck chair as you search for the keys: the air feels foggier the further we get from Tokyo.

"I don't know", I reply eventually. For once, I don't feel the need to explain myself to you or me... it's as if things are following a path I can't see. And as if you know this, as if you think the same thing, you unlock the door and nod your head in courtesy.

"Come in, I'll show you the rooms."

 _I'm not buying the house_ , I could say. _I'm not living here. Why have you brought me?_ Privacy is not privacy when we are together–what you lack in vulnerability you compulsively thrust into bare exposure. What are you trying to tell me, to _show_ me? 

What am I trying to tell _you?_

I hold out my hand.

You pull me up from the seat and, when connected, I realise how much taller you are than me; these fair few inches that put my chin on your shoulder and your nose in my hair. Grandeur has always been your proclivity in small ways and the inside of the house doesn't fail to disappoint. 

"It's not empty", I say, my voice carrying through the halls. You guide us in measured steps past light-coloured walls and squares of sun: wood furnishings that remind me of Leblanc and soft carpets to break through the thin scent of malice–even stained glass.

"It was on the market for a while so they added the staging furniture into the contract", you explain. "I rather like it."

_Because it feels like home?_

"How long have you been looking at it?"

"Eight months, maybe", I'd almost guess you were lying from embarrassment. "The agent told me that it was too far from the city for most, not far enough for others-"

"Perfect for you", I interrupt. Your hand feels strange in mine, briefly, as if you didn't know whether to let go or hold tighter.

"Yes", you reply. _Absent? Polite?_ "Perfect for me."

"You might get lonely." Our hands twist apart and suddenly we are rivals, either end of the kitchen island and stuck within a stunted momentum–you take off your jacket and fold it over the bar stool and I want to admit that the edge of the counter against my lower back feels like the warmth of your palm (I press _harder_ ).

"Maybe", you admit, "but I'd hoped my friends would visit every now and then."

The windows of the kitchen are large and wide, the garden in desperate need of care but flourishing nonetheless. _Does the light catch me standing here in the same way it catches you?_ , I wonder. At the outdoor tables, with your charcoal gloves, with a pin behind your ear keeping your fringe from sticking to your skin on the hotter days.

"I'd visit you every day, if you asked."

I want to ask if you still think about back then, but I think we both do. I think maybe that's why we've persisted in each other's lives, why we could now get rid of all the curtains and blinds and permanently invite the sun to murmur over whatever has been bubbling between us... but maybe too much time has passed. Maybe we lost our chances years ago, gambled them away.

_If only I had met you earlier._

Maybe that is what I mean to say.

"Would you stay?"

Your hand comes to my waist, your height filling my space. _When did you roll up your sleeves, take off your gloves? When had I crossed my arms in retreat? When did we fall in love?_

Speaking to you, seeing you, spotting you across the train station feels like all and none of comfort. You fuel me by eyesight–I am no longer hungry. I would stay and I would stay away and I too would crowd your space to remind you of what we share and what it is like when it is taken away. It's hard to swallow when I lean my forehead on your chest, my fingers tight on my own biceps: today, Goro, we are shallow waters.

"If you asked."

It is less of a break and more of a release. Right now, in this kitchen, after you've already said goodbye to our memories in the city, I imagine a piece of you has always longed for me, and that I have always longed for you.

I could protest this all and say we've not once ever expressed interest in each other, could say I've never been interested in men, but we've had every other conversation that could be had–outside the café, on the safety of the lake and every so often when you'd scratch an eyelash away– _yes, it's almost closing time. No, I have to be up early to put a fresh batch on. Yes, that one will simmer overnight._ And when the most I do is rub my legs and thighs back and forth, the bone and the flesh, the warmth I create, I realise now it emulates what I think of you. Subconsciously, I realise, _hard hittingly_ , _breaking news_ -like, I needed you to tell me.

Anything, anyhow, inhale your words and pierce them straight through me. _I'll come for you_ , I realise. I can't come for myself.

"Am I a man if I love other men?", you whisper in our kitchen but you are almost smiling. I have never felt closer to another human being in this moment, and never have I felt more human in my life. Never have I felt so awake–but I don't know what makes a man a man. I _love_ and I _love_ and I will _love_ until my brain is sick or my heart gives up on this body. I love men as I had learned to love my life: patiently, privately, and with the indebted ideology of _pricelessness_.

You burn brightly on my eyes, score yourself there. I will love you on all of my special occasions ( _read: every day I have loved, will love and will never love you_ ).

"No." I suppose we are connected. "You're _you_. You're just yourself."

It is not _yes_ or _no_ , or any other answer you could write in your antique pen with the small silver bar, but my answer confidently signs a signature against your brain. Funnily enough, I feel like we've grown together.

"You can change anything that you don't like", your voice is a little strained. You can't believe it, can you? Neither can I. "I'll take us down to the city tomorrow, we can pick up anything you need."

"I'm sure you've thought of everything."

We lay in a dark blue room that night for an hour. Listening to the sounds of the house, becoming adjusted to the shake of the wind... It will take a long time, it could take forever, but you whisper that maybe it's time to feel optimistic, that we deserve that.

I think of you and your silent lovers. _Have_ _you been so unaware of those around you who treasure the moments they spend in your company?_

"No", you tell me quietly. Shadows make your face seem sharper and your fingers have yet to leave my hair–I never thought sharing a pillow could feel so good. "But I think you might be unaware of yours."

You make me want to write love letters once in every while.


End file.
